Budgeting, training, dreaming

Les Sillars teaches a WJI mid-career class in March at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Photo by Naomi Balk

We used to call May “WJI Month”—that’s when the World Journalism Institute’s flagship college course takes place, and many of our staff are deeply involved in making it happen. In recent years, though, WJI has added courses and events that now stretch across the calendar, so it’s not quite right to confine WJI to a single month. Still, the college course—hosted for the past several years at Dordt University—continues to occupy our time, focus, and prayers throughout May.

Although WJI has grown and adjusted its program since 1999, the mission remains the same, and it continues to fulfill its mission in remarkable ways. WJI alumni are practicing WORLD-style, Biblically grounded journalism in dozens of newsrooms around the world—including here on our own staff. Please pray now for the students and faculty working the May course, and for those at the various other courses and events WJI will hold this year.

We have never referred to May as “budgeting month,” even though it fits. We start the budgeting process for the July 1 fiscal year as early as March, and the budget is finally approved by our board of directors in June, but much of the work and the preliminary board review occur in May.

Budgeting is not just extra work for our accounting team—it’s every department, every manager. And yes, it can be cumbersome. But we’ve found that having a careful, even cumbersome, budgeting process makes the rest of the year go more smoothly. Ironically, the process gets a bit smoother each year—even as the organization grows more complex.

The process does require wisdom at every step. We can’t do everything, so we often have to choose between two or more great options. Budgets demand decisions. And it’s not as simple as picking the option with the quickest payoff—we must plan for the long term, even while working on the next year’s budget. But let’s face it: We like to dream a little, too. And we ask God to direct even those dreams. So, as we plan, we’ll ask ourselves, Is there room in the budget for dreams?

We’re taking the next step in WORLD’s growing professional development program: Lynn Vincent, who has been leading our planning for the program, will soon be leading its execution as WORLD’s first chief training officer. We’ve been hinting at this move for months, and on July 1, with the beginning of the new fiscal year, it becomes official.

If you’re keeping score at home, that means on July 1 we will have one chief content officer (Nick Eicher) instead of two (Nick and Lynn have been sharing the role up to now), one chief training officer (Lynn Vincent), and one editor-in-chief (Les Sillars).

That’s what’s coming, but let’s go back a few years to see how this all got started. At the very first meeting of our then-new Editorial Council, the need for improved long-term training for our staff came up several times. The discussion focused on training of our editorial teams, but the underlying need was professional development across all of WORLD’s departments.

We all agreed, back then, that we would begin looking for ways to address that need. We didn’t know what it would look like then, and truthfully, we still don’t. But God has consistently provided to meet our needs in unexpected ways. This move for Lynn is one of those ways. I’ll keep you posted—as always—on the ways God continues to provide.